VLC completely stopped working

Solution 1:

I also once got the following:

main interface error: no suitable interface module
main libvlc error: interface "default" initialization failed

what I did was:

• Purge all VLC related packages. Not delete but purge. In the example below there could be some packages missing from the purge list:

  sudo apt-get purge vlc vlc-data vlc-plugin-pulse vlc-nox
  

  If you are missing VLC packages simply do an apt show vlc or apt-cache search vlc but I recommend aptitude because of the friendly level compared to apt which is better: aptitude search vlc or aptitude show vlc. Both will show the packages, the former will show what packages you actually have installed. Remove those.

• After you have removed ANY trace of VLC then make sure you don't have any conflict between 2 or more repositories that offer the VLC package or make sure you do not have an Alpha, Beta, Snapshot PPA that offers daily or not tested VLC packages. Type software-properties-gtk and it should open the Repository manager. Select Other Software and start looking in there for any VLC like PPA. Disable it or remove it.

• Lastly go to /var/cache/apt/archives and remove all DEB packages (This is the cache folder for downloaded packages). This will make sure that when you tell apt to install the vlc packages again, it won't take the cache one but will download a new/working one instead. By doing sudo rm -fr *.deb INSIDE the /var/cache/apt/archives folder you will remove all deb packages in it.

• After doing all 3 steps mentioned already, do a sudo apt-get update followed by an sudo apt-get upgrade. Wait until all repositories are updated and everything was updated and then do sudo apt-get install vlc. If you want, before installing VLC again, reboot PC to make sure no process, symlink or anything is still lurking around. I am being a bit paranoid here but the time this problem happened to me I followed 2000 tutorials to solving it. None work.

Solution 2:

If all those trials didn't, why not try installing it from Ubuntu source package:

1. Download build dependencies then source

   sudo apt-get build-dep vlc
   apt-get source vlc
   

2. Build then install (--prefix=/opt/vlc to install it separately)

   cd vlc-2.1.2/
   ./configure --prefix=/opt/vlc
   ./compile
   sudo make install
   

3. Run:

   /opt/vlc/bin/vlc